Today, we must look to the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a metaphor of our national character and aspiration, its symbol a thirty-foot-high cardboard picture of a slot machine and a chorus girl. For Las Vegas is a city entirely devoted to the idea of entertainment, and as such proclaims the spirit of a culture in which all public discourse increasingly takes the form of entertainment. Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death.
Las Vegas, Nevada, serves as a powerful symbol reflecting our national identity and ambitions, epitomized by its extravagant imagery of entertainment, like a giant cardboard slot machine. The city represents a culture that prioritizes entertainment in all aspects of life, where politics, religion, news, sports, and education have merged with the entertainment industry. This transformation has occurred with little resistance or awareness from the public.
As a consequence, society is at risk of losing depth in discourse, becoming overly focused on entertainment. This phenomenon suggests that we might be engaging in self-distracting behaviors that could lead us to a state of intellectual decline, aptly described as amusing ourselves to death. Neil Postman warns of this trend, urging us to recognize the implications of our entertainment-driven culture.
